Representing Geographic Space as a Hierarchy of Recursively Defined Subspaces for Computing the Degree of Order

As Christopher Alexander discovered, all space or matter – either organic or inorganic – has some degree of order in it according to its structure and arrangement. The order refers to a kind of structural character, called living structure, which is defined as a mathematical structure that consists of numerous substructures with an inherent hierarchy. Across the hierarchy, there are far more small substructures than large ones, while on each level of the hierarchy the substructures are more or less similar in size. In this paper we develop a new approach to representing geographic space as a hierarchy of recursively defined subspaces for computing the degree of order. A geographic space is first represented as a hierarchy of recursively defined subspaces, and all the subspaces are then topologically represented as a network for computing the degree of order of the geographic space, as well as that of its subspaces. Unlike conventional geographic representations, which are mechanical in nature, this new geographic representation is organic, conceived, and developed under the third view of space; that is, space is neither lifeless nor neutral, but a living structure capable of being more living or less living. Thus, the order can also be referred to as life, beauty, coherence, or harmony. We applied the new representation to three urban environments, 253 patterns, and 35 black-white strips to verify it and to demonstrate advantages of the new approach and the new kind of order. We further discuss the implications of the approach and the order on geographic information science and sustainable urban planning.

Artefato metodológico do City Pattern: tradução computacional paramétrica de princípios de Christopher Alexander sobre forma e vida urbana

O design computacional, especificamente a modelagem paramétrica, tem desempenhado um papel importante no alcance de formas complexas, otimizações e automatizações de processos de design. Além de usar a tecnologia paramétrica como ferramenta para gerar forma, este artigo tem como objetivo discutir o potencial da programação computacional como uma conexão entre a teoria e a atividade projetiva. Para ilustrar isso, este artigo apresentará a metodologia desenvolvida para traduzir a obra do arquiteto Christopher Alexander como base para o desenvolvimento de instrumentos computacionais de tomada de decisão que lidem com a complexidade entre a forma e a vida urbana. Para tanto, será apresentado o problema, o método Design Science Research como importante referência, a aplicação da metodologia de tradução dos padrões de Alexander e por fim o formato genérico das etapas, aplicável para tradução de outras bases teóricas.

THE DYNAMIC OF ADAPTIVE SHELTER: SEBUAH WADAH ADAPTIF-DINAMIS DI KAMPUNG NELAYAN, KAMAL MUARA

"Dwelling" basically means living in a place. However, Dwelling itself has a broader meaning when we understand how humans decided to inhabit. In the book The Nature of Order, Christopher Alexander says "Dwelling is Living-Structure" which means to live is a life participating in a living-structure. This quote directly describes a relationship between nature and humans in the process of living. Seeing the conditions that exist in the world today, there are many aspects that can affect the way humans will live in the future. One of the problems that humans have to face is climate change which causes sea level rise. Realizing that humans must face these events and know that in reality, humans cannot be separated from their natural surroundings, "The Dynamic of Adaptive Shelter" was designed with the aim of wanting to unite aspects of habitation (especially nature and humans) as well as provide solutions for buildings that are adaptive to sea level rise. Located in Kamal Muara, North Jakarta, this project begins by studying the selected site, community activities, the shape of the buildings around the site, as well as the natural characteristics around the site, as a method that refers to a quote from Martin Heidegger's book about "the thing It-self". Referring to the results of the selected site, this project is complemented with programs that are suitable for the activities of the residents of the area and have been developed with systems which can adapt to the issue of sea level rise. Keywords: Adaptive-Dynamic; Coastal; Dwelling; Fishermen ; Sea Level Rise Abstrak“Dwelling” atau Berhuni pada dasarnya memiliki arti hidup pada suatu tempat. Namun Dwelling sendiri memiliki arti yang lebih luas saat kita memahami awal mula manusia memutuskan untuk berhuni. Dalam buku The Nature of Order Christohper Alexander mengatakan “Dwelling is Living- Structure” yang berarti berhuni adalah hidup berpartisipasi dalam Struktur-kehidupan (Living- structure). Kutipan tersebut secara langsung menggambarkan sebuah keterkaitan antara alam dan manusia dalam menuju proses berhuni. Melihat kondisi yang ada didunia saat ini banyak aspek yang dapat mempengaruhi cara manusia berhuni dimasa depan. Salah satu permasalahan yang harus dihadapi manusia adalah perubahan iklim yang menyebabkan kenaikan permukaan air laut. Menyadari bahwa manusia harus menghadapi peristiwa tersebut dan mengetahuni bahwa pada dasarnya dalam proses berhuni manusia tidak terlepas dari alam sekitarnya, “Wadah Adaptif- Dinamis” dirancang dengan tujuan ingin mempersatukan aspek-aspek berhuni (khususnya alam dan manusia) dan juga memberikan solusi akan bangunan yang adaptif akan kenaikan permukaan air laut. Berlokasi di Kamal Muara, Jakarta Utara proyek ini diawali dengan mempelajari site terpilih, aktivitas masyarakat, bentuk bangunan sekitar tapak, dan juga karakteristik alam sekitar tapak, sebagaimana metode yang mengacu pada kutipan buku Martin Heidegger tentang “the thing It-self”. Mengacu pada hasil analisis tapak terpilih, proyek ini dilengkapi dengan program-program yang sesuai dengan aktifitas penduduk daerahnya dan telah dikembangkan dengan sistem-sistem yang mana dapat beradaptasi dengan kondisi alam sekitar dan menjawa isu akan kenaikan permukaan air laut.

Structural Beauty: A Structure-Based Computational Approach to Quantifying the Beauty of an Image

To say that beauty is in the eye of the beholder means that beauty is largely subjective so varies from person to person. While the subjectivity view is commonly held, there is also an objectivity view that seeks to measure beauty or aesthetics in some quantitative manners. Christopher Alexander has long discovered that beauty or coherence highly correlates to the number of subsymmetries or substructures and demonstrated that there is a shared notion of beauty—structural beauty—among people and even different peoples, regardless of their faiths, cultures, and ethnicities. This notion of structural beauty arises directly out of living structure or wholeness, a physical and mathematical structure that underlies all space and matter. Based on the concept of living structure, this paper develops an approach for computing the structural beauty or life of an image (L) based on the number of automatically derived substructures (S) and their inherent hierarchy (H). To verify this approach, we conducted a series of case studies applied to eight pairs of images including Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa and Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles. We discovered among others that Blue Poles is more structurally beautiful than the Mona Lisa, and traditional buildings are in general more structurally beautiful than their modernist counterparts. This finding implies that goodness of things or images is largely a matter of fact rather than an opinion or personal preference as conventionally conceived. The research on structural beauty has deep implications on many disciplines, where beauty or aesthetics is a major concern such as image understanding and computer vision, architecture and urban design, humanities and arts, neurophysiology, and psychology.

Introducing the “15-Minute City”: Sustainability, Resilience and Place Identity in Future Post-Pandemic Cities

The socio-economic impacts on cities during the COVID-19 pandemic have been brutal, leading to increasing inequalities and record numbers of unemployment around the world. While cities endure lockdowns in order to ensure decent levels of health, the challenges linked to the unfolding of the pandemic have led to the need for a radical re-think of the city, leading to the re-emergence of a concept, initially proposed in 2016 by Carlos Moreno: the “15-Minute City”. The concept, offering a novel perspective of “chrono-urbanism”, adds to existing thematic of Smart Cities and the rhetoric of building more humane urban fabrics, outlined by Christopher Alexander, and that of building safer, more resilient, sustainable and inclusive cities, as depicted in the Sustainable Development Goal 11 of the United Nations. With the concept gaining ground in popular media and its subsequent adoption at policy level in a number of cities of varying scale and geographies, the present paper sets forth to introduce the concept, its origins, intent and future directions.

The Impacts of Symmetry in Architecture and Urbanism: Toward a New Research Agenda

Architecture has an ancient relationship to mathematics, and symmetry—in the broad sense of the term—is a core topic of both. Yet the contemporary application of theories of symmetry to architecture and built environments is a surprisingly immature area of research. At the same time, research is showing a divergence between the benefits of and preferences for natural environments on the one hand, and built environments on the other, demonstrating relatively deleterious effects of many contemporary built environments. Yet the research cannot yet pinpoint the actual geometric factors of architecture and urbanism that could produce such an important divergence. This paper explores this research gap, surveying the literature across a range of fields, and assessing current evidence for the impacts of symmetry in the built environment upon human perception and well-being. As an emerging case study, it considers the recent work by Christopher Alexander and Nikos Salingaros, two trained mathematicians who have made notable contributions to architecture and urbanism. The conclusion proposes a new research agenda toward further development of this immature subject area.

Living Structure as an Empirical Measurement of City Morphology

Human actions and interactions are shaped in part by our direct environment. The studies of Christopher Alexander show that objects and structures can inhibit natural properties and characteristics; this is measured in living structure. He also found that we have better connection and feeling with more natural structures, as they more closely resemble ourselves. These theories are applied in this study to analyze and compare the urban morphology within different cities. The main aim of the study is to measure the living structure in cities. By identifying the living structure within cities, comparisons can be made between different types of cities, artificial and historical, and an estimation of what kind of effect this has on our wellbeing can be made. To do this, natural cities and natural streets are identified following a bottom-up data-driven methodology based on the underlying structures present in OpenStreetMap (OSM) road data. The naturally defined city edges (natural cities) based on intersection density and naturally occurring connected roads (natural streets) based on good continuity between road segments in the road data are extracted and then analyzed together. Thereafter, historical cities are compared with artificial cities to investigate the differences in living structure; it is found that historical cities generally consist of far more living structure than artificial cities. This research finds that the current usage of concrete, steel, and glass combined with very fast development speeds is detrimental to the living structure within cities. Newer city developments should be performed in symbiosis with older city structures as a whole, and the structure of the development should inhibit scaling as well as the buildings themselves.

Think like a forest. Diluting the boundaries between nature and city

To make the city biomimetic does not mean necessarily to copy nature, but rather to pursue processes analogous to natural ones, diluting the boundaries between nature and cit. Thinking like a forest when approaching urbanism, might lead to sympathize with natural boundaries. The title of this paper reprises a short chapter, “Thinking like a Mountain”, by the great American ecologist Aldo Leopold, published in The Sand County Almanac in 1949. The first part of the paper recall how the relationship between nature and architecture has been understood in the past, quoting some theories, from Abbé Laugier to Christopher Alexander, to Gilles Deleuze, to Peter Wohlleben. In the second part of the paper some reflections are made on a selection of projects that since the 1970s have sought to mitigate the destructive effects of the city on the ecology proposing a closer relationship with nature.